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Fire Druid
→ Molten Boulder → Fissure → Volcano → Armageddon The Fire Druids focus on the left side of the Elemental skill tree where the fire-based skills are. This is very similar to the Wind Druid, except it's not as popular due to several factors. Firstly, the last fire skill, Armageddon, as a prerequisite, requires the last Wind skill, Hurricane, which, in turn, requires all the other Wind skills. So effectively, Armageddon's prerequisites are every other Elemental skill, which requires five skill points to invest in the wind skills. It's not much, but it makes a difference. However, the exceptionally high synergy bonuses can easily compensate for this, resulting in much higher damage. It's true that many monsters in difficulty are immune to fire, but Molten Boulder and Volcano still can do a good job. If you like fire, don't hesitate to make a Fire Druid, they can be very fun to play - and it's much easier to handle the first few acts with fire than with wind because wind skills are more effective at higher levels. The Druid's fire skills are also some of the most visually-impressive effects in the game. Because fire-based builds are difficult to use in Nightmare and Hell, any fire-based Druid will be primarily for play in Normal difficulty. In allied multiplayer games, the fire-immune monsters can be dealt with by your allies, still leaving a massive share for you in combat with other monsters. One effective version, however, uses a combination between Dire Wolves and Fissure. The wolves (plus mercenaries) are used to bog the enemy down, while the Druid casts Fissure, which does exceptional constant damage for its level. Hilariously, this is very effective against Act Bosses, and can be used to kill tough monsters like Duriel before they even harm the player, so long as the Druid remembers to summon more wolves as they begin to die. Fire Skills Each of the fire skills has different abilities and weaknesses. Knowledge of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the fire skills is important in letting you bring a Fire Druid through Nightmare and especially Hell. One main weakness that all the fire skills have is that they can only be cast on ground. This makes flying monsters more difficult to handle, but see the section on Molten Boulder. Another main weakness of all the fire skills is that they are timered, greatly reducing the utility of faster cast rate. Firestorm does an apparently small amount of fire damage, and appears difficult to reliably aim. However, note that the rated damage on the character screen and skill description are misleading; in particular, at higher cast rates, it is possible to deal up to 3 times the rated damage per second on an act boss. Also, at levels above 20, Firestorm's damage increases significantly. Finally, it has two synergies, each of which boosts Firestorm's damage by 23%. Firestorm releases 3 paths of flame. The center path is always a straight line towards the location you click, while the two side paths will meander pseudo-randomly. To maximize your damage, practice moving around and targeting different points until you can get at least one of the two side paths to converge with the center path on a nonmoving target monster. While standing toe-to-toe will assure both side paths will hit the monster, this is widely considered to be dangerous for a spellcaster. Fortunately, there is a significant chance of a side path crossing the center path at about a druid-length or so away from your target. Firestorm is weak against monsters with a small standing profile (imps and vampires), especially if they are moving fast (it will deal less than the rated damage). It deals reasonable fire damage against most other monsters if you can get at least one of the side paths to cross the center path under the target. It deals significant fire damage against act bosses, especially if you can get both side paths to cross the center path under the target. Unlike the other fire spells, Firestorm benefits significantly from faster cast rate due to its very short timer. The main use of Firestorm is to kill act bosses or individual or small groups of slow, large monsters that you can immobilize easily. In general, it is better than Volcano against non-fire immune monsters, but requires greater skill to use. Molten Boulder Molten Boulder rolls a slow-moving boulder in a straight line towards the targeted location. The boulder will knock back small and medium monsters. The knock back direction is always away from the druid, so if you move, the direction of the knock back will change - it's possible to outrun the boulder and have it knock back monsters it hits "backwards", i.e. in the opposite direction that the boulder is actually travelling. Monsters knocked back will be damaged with physical and fire damage, and if you don't move the druid, will very likely be hit again and again by the boulder, dealing significant amounts of damage. The boulder will leave behind a trail of fire, like in Blaze. Molten Boulder will stop if it hits an obstruction or a large monster that it can't knock back; it will then explode, dealing physical damage and fire damage in a small area, and leave a flaming patch. The explosion when the boulder hits the end of ground is the only way for a fire druid to reliably deal damage to water lurking monsters, and flying monsters that are flying over water, lava, or void but are near enough to ground for the boulder's explosion to hit them. Molten Boulder is weak in places with lots of obstructions, such as the Stony Field, and is weak (but barely usable) against large fire immunes. It is excellent against non-fire immune small and medium monsters, and is at least reasonable against fire immune small and medium monsters. As mentioned, it is the only fire skill capable of reliably damaging water lurkers. As one of the two fire skills that deal a non-trivial amount of physical damage, you need to practice using this skill in order to get past the in Hell Act I. Fissure Fissure opens up several vents on the ground that deal damage. The pattern of opening vents is pseudo-random. It's possible to cast two Fissures on top of each other, but it is recommended that you move the pointer slightly for the second cast. If you cast in exactly the same point both times, the same pattern of vents is opened, which is usually less useful against nonmoving crowds, and is less likely to affect moving monsters. Fissure is powerful in two, usually non-overlapping cases: # The monsters are in a large, tight group. # The monsters are moving at a rate that is not too slow and not too fast. Due to the way that the game computes whether a fissure vent "hits", fissure deals very high damage in the above two cases. In addition, a monster in hit recovery animation will not be damaged by fissure. This cuts down on fissure damage. Ideally, fissure is best used against a large, tight group of non fire immune monsters with large lives (so that the damage of the fissure will not put the monsters into hit recovery), or against a small moving group. Against a moving group, fissure is usually harder and riskier to use. Paradoxically, due to the way that the game considers whether a fissure vent "hits", hitting a small, not so tightly knit group of monsters mixed with fire immunes and non-fire immunes will deal very high damage to the non fire immunes (to be vaguely technical, the vent "missile" has a timer that is reset whenever it hits a monster, with a large delay if the vent hits the same monster, but with a smaller delay if the monster is immune or if the vent hits several monsters at once, hence the increased damage in the case of tight groups or fire immunes. Each vent has a different sense of "the last monster that got hit", so moving monsters will be damaged more often by stepping on different vents). Fissure is weak in small areas limited by non-ground (water, void, lava, forests, dungeon wall, etc.), since a vent might open in non-ground area, but fail due to the area not being on ground, reducing the vents actually opened. Fissure is also useful defensively. Before going into unexplored territory, cast Fissure at the edge of the screen then walk to the edge of the fissure area. This lets you get some advanced warning of the presence of monsters if you listen for hits. Volcano Volcano launches several fireballs from a designated target point. The fireballs land in a small area around the target point, but all of them pass through the designated target point. It is better to think of the volcano as targeting a single location and having a small amount of splash damage; it is location-based attack, not a wide-area attack. Volcano deals tremendous fire and physical damage to the designated location, and is optimally used for non-moving targets. It is also useful if you can cast them in doorways or tight places, where monsters have to pass in order to reach you or your minions. It's possible to cast two Volcanoes in the same location, but this does not increase damage, because being hit by the rising fireball will prevent the monster from being damaged by another fireball for 10 frames, negating the effect of extra fireballs being launched. It helps to think of this as more of a "refresh" of the Volcano on exactly the same point rather than doubling the Volcano damage, unlike the case with Fissure. The Grizzly minion is usually contraindicated, since they tend to knock opponents out of the Volcano's location. Volcano's fireballs can be blocked. Since act bosses usually have tremendously high block rates, this makes Volcano do less damage against them than expected. Firestorm is usually better against act bosses, but requires greater player skill to aim, unlike Volcano, which is just "point and shoot". Both are best utilized against non-moving monsters. Volcano, however, can damage fire immunes. As one of the two fire skills that deal a non-trivial amount of physical damage, you need to practice using this skill in order to get past the in Hell Act I. Generally, a workable strategy against the fire immune Fallen is: # Distract the shaman by casting a minion on top of them - usually a poison creeper is best. Have your other minions and the mercenary run interference on the Fallen themselves. # Launch a Volcano on them. During the cast delay make sure that the minion continually distracts the shaman by recasting it on the shaman if necessary. You may need to move around to avoid the Fallen. # When the shaman dies, bowl the Fallen with a Molten Boulder.